Disposable barbecues could be banned in UK to cut risk of wildfires
Environment minister Victoria Prentis said the barbecues can present a ‘wildfire risk’
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Your support makes all the difference.Disposable barbecues could be banned to cut the risk of wildfires, a minister has suggested.
Waitrose and Aldi have already stopped selling the single use grills in order to protect forests and wildlife in the UK.
And last month, councillors at Brighton and Hove City Council voted overwhelmingly to ban them from beaches and parks as part of its strategy to tackle climate change.
Environment minister Victoria Prentis told a House of Commons debate the government was commissioning research to examine the role that disposable barbecues play in wildfires.
She said the latest data from the Home Office suggested that around 4 per cent of accidental fires can be linked to barbecue use, but that this does not differentiate between the use of a barbecue in a home or at a place like a public park.
She added: “Disposable barbecues, if used correctly, do not, in themselves, pose a wildfire risk; it is when they are left unattended, or used recklessly, that the risk occurs.
“It is clear to me that we do not have enough data on the role that disposable barbecues play in wildfire incidents.
“However, anecdotal evidence — not least in this debate — suggests that they have been responsible for a number of serious incidents.”
She said the government research will also examine other flammable items that are used in public spaces such as sky lanterns and portable stoves.
Labour MP Holly Lynch, who led the Commons debate, highlighted the 75 wildfires that West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service has already attended this year, and added that “a significant number are caused by careless and reckless use of disposable barbecues on our moorland.”
She said a ban on disposable barbecues “would have an instant and transformative effect in protecting our moorland and would help to safeguard them and our communities in the years ahead.”
Conservative MP Robbie Moore said that Ilkley moor, in his constituency of Keighley and Ilkley, has been the victim of wildfires caused by “disposable barbecues being lit and left in situ by individuals who disappear home.”
He added: “At a national level, there is more work that the Government could do to explore the possibility of banning disposable barbecues and, most definitely, sky lanterns. That is something that I am definitely behind.”
The debate from MPs comes after concerns were shared by the National Fire Chiefs Council over the number of instant barbecue-related fires, both in outdoor spaces and in the home when used on balconies or too close to garden fences and trees.
Fires last summer at Froward Point in Devon, Wareham Forest in Dorset and Darwen Moor in Lancashire were all caused by instant barbecues.
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